USA > South Carolina > Oconee County > The Old Stone Church, Oconee County, South Carolina; > Part 14
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"Wild woods grow and rivers row, And monie a hill between."
Here, in Mt. Pinnacle, in Pickens County, our State reaches its greatest elevation-three thousand six hundred feet-above old ocean's level. Here the lover of the sub- lime and the beautiful in nature finds Table Rock, "rearing a colossal and almost perpendicular wall of solid granite over eleven hundred feet above its base, and striking the beholder with awe and wonder." Here is seen the vale of Jocassee- "celebrated for its romantic situation, rich valleys and beau- tiful waterfalls-literally shut in on every side by lofty mountains."
This sunset corner of Carolina was, in the days of the Indian, the home of the Cherokees. About one-tenth of the territory of these dusky warriors of the mountains was within the present limits of the little Secession State.
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As early as 1730, when our colony was but three-score years old, the King of England sent Sir Alexander Cumming three thousand miles across the Atlantic, and from the settlement at Charleston, three hundred miles into the wilderness to treat with the chiefs of these tribes. This fact is evidence of the estimate placed by England upon the value of the lands and the worth of the friendship of these red men in the struggle then pending between Briton and Gaul for the possession of the great valley-the very heart of the North American Continent. The details of this treaty, made within the limits of Old Pendleton District, at Keowee, an important Indian town which stood on land by the side of the river of the same name, now owned by Mr. Nimmons. are full of interest and may be read in the records of those early days.
Twenty-five years later-about 1755-The Colonial Go- vernor of Carolina, James Glenn, made another treaty with the aborigines, securing vast tracts of land in the upper part of the State, and permission to erect in the Indian territory forts for the protection of the back country. One of the most important of these forts was Prince George, on the Keowee, opposite, and within cannon shot of, the Indian village of Keowee, above mentioned. Capt. R. E. Steele, a Confederate veteran, now owns the site of this famous fort, and takes peculiar pleasure in pointing out to the visi- tor the spring which supplied pure mountain water to the garrison ; a large mulberry tree which grew up on the walls, and the lines of the fortification. Much valuable history and many thrilling traditions cluster around old Fort Prince George. Miss Murfree's "Story of Old Fort London" and Dr. J. Walter Daniel's poem, "Cateechee of Keowee," are cordially commended to all who are fond of reading the stories of those distant times.
Twenty years after Glenn's treaty the War of the Revolu- tion broke out. The Cherokees sided with the English. While Parker and Clinton were to attack Charleston the
13-O. S. C.
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Cherokees were to lay waste the back country settlements. Britain's plans were well laid. But Moultrie and his men on the sands of Sullivan's Island, and Williamson with his followers amid the wooded hills of the up-country, furnished another striking illustration of the going "a-glee" of men's best laid schemes. During this campaign-in the summer of 1776-Williamson threw up fortifications on Eighteen Mile Creek, portions of which may to-day be seen near the brick yards of Mr. J. C. Stribling. About the same time he built Fort Rutledge, on the Seneca, which, with its guns, overawed the Indian village called Seneca, one of the most important of the "lower towns" of the Cherokees. This fort was once garrisoned by two independent companies of rangers. Near it, on the plantation, afterwards owned by Mr. Andrew F. Lewis, Capt. Salvador was slain in battle with the savages and Tories. When John C. Calhoun came into possession of the farm, which was his home for the last twenty-five years of his honored life, he called this place "Fort Hill," in commemoration of Fort Rutledge.
Other places within the limits of "Old Pendleton" closely associated with Cherokee history are Hopewell and Tomas- see, both homes of Gen. Andrew Pickens. The former near Cherry's Crossing, on the Blue Ridge Railroad, where the railroad bridge spans the Seneca River, the latter about eight miles north of Walhalla. The former was the scene of several important treaties, the latter of a hard-fought battle, wherein the old Christian Statesman and warrior rendered most efficient service. Gen. Pickens died suddenly at Tomassee while sitting in a chair under a shade tree- still standing-in his yard. His remains were brought to the cemetery of Hopewell Church, named in honor of his former home near by, popularly known as the Old Stone Church, and laid to rest by the side of the grave of his wife, Rebecca Calhoun, an aunt of John C. Calhoun, Carolina's most illustrious son.
After the Revolution the Cherokees were forced west-
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ward, surrendering their last holdings in South Carolina in 1817. These people, in the war of 1812, rendered Gen. Andrew Jackson valuable assistance from their homes in Georgia. Forced later from that State, many of them were sent beyond the great "Father of Waters." Daughters of the Confederacy, at whose request this address is prepared, may be interested in recalling that the Cherokees, at the outbreak of the War Between the States, took the side of the Confederacy, and rendered valiant service in the battles of the West.
In the "Myths of the Cherokees"-one of our Government publications -- is a store house of good things of the history and tradition of the red men who dwelt where we of "Old Pendleton" now dwell.
For almost one hundred years after the first permanent settlement of our State no courts, save those at Charleston, were held within its borders. Consequent lawlessness led to the rule of the "Regulators." This induced the authori- ties to provide in 1768 -- eight years before the Declaration of Independence-for seven Judicial Districts, viz : Charles- ton, Beaufort, Orangeburg, Georgetown, Camden, Cheraw and Ninety-Six. The first six are in the old Statutes, accu- rately defined. The seventh, Ninety-Six District or Pre- cinct, is therein somewhat vaguely declared to extend to all other parts of the Province. In 1791-eight years after the formal close of the Revolution-George Washington's first term as President being about half out, the year of his tour of the Southern States, Charles Pinckney being Gover- nor of South Carolina, an Act to further regulate the Cir- cuit Courts created Pinckney and Washington Districts- the latter including the Counties of Greenville and Pendle- ton. Pickensville, which stood near Easley, was the County seat of the Washington District.
Seven years later, in 1798, Pendleton and Greenville were made separate Judicial Districts, Pendleton being the County seat of the former, Greenville of the latter.
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In 1826, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, the death year of Jefferson and the elder Adams, Pendleton was divided into the Judicial Districts of Anderson and Pickens, the County seat of the former being located at Anderson, the latter at Pickens Court House, now known as "Old Pickens," near the site of old Fort Prince George and the Indian village of Keowee.
In the Constitutional Convention of 1865, the year of Lee's surrender, the long struggle to make "Judicial" and "Election" Districts, the same in fact and in name, was nearly ended, Charleston being the sole exception.
The Constitutional Convention of 1868, military ordered, negro chosen, and in the main "carpet-bag," "scalawag" and negro composed, changed the name "District" to "County," thus bringing South Carolina into conformity with all the other States except Louisiana, divided Pickens County into Oconee County, with Walhalla its County seat, and Pickens County with the County seat at the present Pickens Court House.
The members of the Convention from the Oconee County section had the boundary lines so arranged as to retain Cal- houn's old home within their territory, and yet named their new County, not after the famous Statesman, but after a small tribe of Cherokee Indians.
As there are "sermons in stone" and "books in brooks," so there are histories in names.
Pendleton was named in honor of Henry Pendleton, who was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1750, and died in Greenville District, South Carolina, January 10th, 1789. He was educated in Virginia. He and his brother Nathan- iel joined the "Culpeper Minute Men," the first patriotic regiment that was organized in the South. Both served in our State. Henry Pendleton was captured at the taking of Charleston. Having learned of a plot of a party of Tories to take him from his quarters at night and hang him at the town gate, he counterfeited the signature of a British
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officer to a pass, and by its use escaped. Cornwallis wrote Moultrie concerning the matter and demanded Pendleton's return. The answer of the hero of the Palmetto log fort was characteristic-he was concerned with nobody's pass- ports but his own.
After the war, Pendleton settled in South Carolina and was elected Judge. He was the author of the County Court Act, passed March 17th, 1785, and was one of the three Judges appointed that year to revise the laws of the State. He was one of the Trustees of the short-lived College of Cambridge, at Ninety-Six. Judge Pendleton was a mem- ber of the Constitutional Convention of 1788. He died at thirty-nine-seven months and twenty days after his adopted State had ratified the Federal Constitution-three months and twenty days before Washington, the illustrious "Cincin- natus of the West," took, for the first time, the oath of office as President of the new United States of America.
Suffer your speaker to read you a page from an old book, rare and valuable, which contains an article on Pendleton District :
"The Court House is located in the village of Pendleton, which, from this circumstance, may be considered the Dis- trict town. It is pleasantly situated near the waters of Eighteen Mile Creek, a considerable branch of the Seneca River, which empties into the Savannah; and contains, be- sides a Court House (a new Court House on an elegant and spacious plan will soon be erected here, an appropriation being made for this purpose by the Legislature) and jail, a Presbyterian and Episcopal Church, forty houses, several of them neat, an academy, printing office (issuing a weekly paper ), and an Agricultural Hall, for the meeting of a So- ciety of this nature. There is every prospect of the village increasing in population. A very select society is found here and in the neighborhood, where some gentlemen of fortune and high respectability, from the low country, have located themselves and families. A beautiful view of the
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mountains is obtained from the village. These bound the horizon to the north. Among the breaks of these colossal mounds is discovered the entrance into the interesting valley of Jocassee, celebrated in song; and off in the distance the eye rests on that splendid mass of perpendicular rock (the admiration of travelers), the Table Mountain, backed by the most elevated grounds in the State, the Sassafras Moun- tain.
"Several settlements, as villages, are established in various places in the District. The oldest of these is Pickensville, formerly the seat of justice, but now reduced to three or four houses. It is situate seven or eight miles west of the Saluda River. The 17th Regiment muster grounds is located here.
"Rock Mills village lies on Generosittee River, a water of Savannah. Here is the largest merchants' mill in the District, belonging to Maverick & Lewis; also a saw mill, spindle factory and distilleries, besides several wagon- makers, shoe-makers, etc.
"Centreville was established by E. Earle, Esq., principally for manufacturing purposes.
"A town was laid out by Gen, Anderson, on the Tugaloo or Savannah River, at the junction of the Seneca, called Andersonville. It is situate at the very point of a peninsula, and is a most romantic spot. The project of making it a commercial town failed. In this place two mills and a forge, etc., were built and a manufactory of small arms established. About one hundred had actually been made when peace put an end to the scheme. As the war contributed to injure it in other respects, and checked the spirit of enterprise, the principal persons moved away. At this place there is now a store, which collects from the Indians the spigelia mari- landica (pink root), which is made up into bundles of about one pound each, stem and all, which are pressed into large hogsheads containing 600 pounds each. This plant brings, in Savannah or Charleston, 25 cents a pound. There are
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also sent to market from this place about 1,000 pounds of ginseng and several hogsheads of snakeroot, both of the black and Seneca kind. The Savannah is here about 400 yards wide."
The "weekly paper," mentioned in the extract just read, was "The Pendleton Weekly Messenger." It was the first newspaper in Western South Carolina, and was perhaps the first paper in America published so far toward the west. Its founder and publisher was John Miller, commonly known as "Printer John," or "Printer Miller," who left England on account of his connection with the publication of the "Junius Letters." His press was one Gen. Nathaniel Greene had used in his campaigns for publishing military orders.
In an appendix to "Ramsey's History of South Carolina," whose preface date is December 31, 1808, the reader sees this statement :
"Among the attempts to diffuse knowledge may be men- tioned a weekly newspaper which is very well conducted and printed at the village of Pendleton by Mr. Miller. It is a fact worthy of record that in the frontier District, thirty years ago possessed by the Indians, the publication of a newspaper has commenced and is carried on in a manner worthy of patronage. The yearly subscription is two dol- lars and a half."
The first Court House was of logs and stood, we learn, near the railroad culvert, not far from the junction of the two branches. The second was of brick and its site was near the present Farmers' Hall, which was built of the material of the temple of justice. A friend, learned in the law, informs us that among the many illustrious names on the records of the Pendleton Courts as practicing therein appear those of John C. Calhoun and George McDuffie, Zachariah Taliafero, a soldier of the Revolution; Warren R. Davis, a member of Congress and a close friend of Davy Crockett; Joseph Tay- lor ; the brothers Armsted and Francis Burt, the last named appointed by President Pierce the first Governor of the terri-
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tory of Nebraska, died while in office, and was brought back to Pendleton and buried in the Episcopal church-yard; and the brothers, Milledge L. and James Bonham, the latter an emigrant to Texas and a victim of the massacre at the Alamo. Benjamin F. Perry, a native of the District, made his maiden speech in the Pendleton Court House, and the last speech of his life was made from a stand erected near its site, from which, while scarcely able to stand from the weakness of age, he addressed an immense multitude-The Farmers' Society and its and his many friends. On this occasion, but a short time before his death, Governor Perry was entertained by his life-long friend, the late John B. Sitton, who, on hearing the aged statesman express a wish to see once more the grave of his father and mother, sent him in a carriage on that pious mission.
Truly, as the poet priest of the Confederacy sings in im- mortal strains, in words which men will not willingly let die :
"There is grandeur in graves, There is glory in gloom; For out of the gloom future brightness is born, As after the night comes the sunrise of morn."
The best, and best known, historical novel that relates to Western South Carolina is J. P. Kennedy's "Horseshoe Rob- ertson." The hero's home was in Pendleton District, and he lived here a third of a century. His house still stands. Hear the reading of an extract from an old paper-"Flag of the Union," published at Tuscaloosa, Ala., dated January 17th, 1838 :
"HORSESHOE ROBERTSON."
"Who has not read Kennedy's delightful novel of this name, and who that has read it would not give an half day's ride to see the venerable living hero of the tale of the 'Tory Ascendency,' the immortal Horseshoe himself, the extermina- tor of 'Jim Curry' and 'Hugh Habershaw?' The venerable patriot bearing the familiar sobriquet, and whose name Mr. Kennedy has made as familiar in the mouths of American
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youths as household words, was visited by us, in company with several friends, one day last week. We found the old gentlemen on his plantation, about twelve miles from this city, as comfortably situated with respect to this world's goods as any one could desire to have him. It was gratify- ing to us to see him in his old age, after having served through the whole war of independence, thus seated under his own vine and fig tree, with his children around him and with the partner of his early toils and trials still continued to him, enjoying in peace and safety the rich rewards of that arduous struggle, in the most gloomy and desponding hour of which he was found as ready, as earnest, as zealous, for the cause of liberty as when victory perched upon her standard, and the star of the "Tory Ascendency' was for a while dimmed by de- feat, and in which he continued with unshaken faith and con- stancy until it sank below the horizon, never again to rise. The old gentleman gave us a partial history of his Revolu- tionary adventures, containing many interesting facts re- specting the domination of the Tory party in the South during the times of the Revolution which Mr. Kennedy has not recorded in his book. But it will chiefly interest our readers, or that portion of them at least to whom the history of the old hero's achievements as recorded by Mr. Kennedy is familiar, to be assured that the principal incidents therein portrayed are strictly true.
"That his escape from Charleston after the capture of that city, his being entrusted with a letter to Butler, the scene at Wat Adair's, the capture of Butler at Grindal's Ford, his sub- sequent escape and recapture, the death of John Ramsay and the detection of the party by reason of the salute fired over his grave, his capturing the four men under the command of the younger St. Germyn, his attack upon Innis's camp, and the death of Hugh Habershaw: by his own hand, and finally the death of Jim Curry, are all narrated pretty much as they occurred, is certain. In the old veteran's language, 'There is a heap of truth in it, though the writer has mightily furnished
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it up.' That the names of Butler, Mildred Linsay, Mary Musgrove, John Ramsay, Hugh Habershaw, Jim Curry, and in fact almost every other used in the book, with the excep- tion of his own, are real and not fictitious. His own name, he informed us, is James ; and that he did not go by the famil- iar appellation by which he is now so widely known until after the war, when he acquired it from the form of his plan- tation in the Horseshoe Bend of the Chauga Creek, which was bestowed upon him by the Legislature of South Carolina in consequence of the services he had rendered during the war. This estate, we understood him to say, he still owned.
"He was born, he says, in 1759, and entered the army in his seventeenth year. Before the close of the war, he says he commanded a troop of horses, so that his military title is that of Capt. Horseshoe. Although in infirm health, he bears evident marks of having been a man of great personal strength and activity. He is now afflicted with a trouble- some cough, which, in the natural course of events, must, in a few years, wear out his aged frame. Yet, notwithstanding his infirmities and general debility, his eye still sparkles with the fire of youth, as he recounts the stirring and thrilling inci- dents of the war, and that sly, quiet humor, so well described by Kennedy, may still be seen playing around his mouth as one calls to his recollections any of the pranks he was wont to play upon any of the 'Tory vagrants,' as he very properly styles them. The old gentleman received us with warm cor- diality and hospitality, and after partaking of the bounties of his board and spending a night under his hospitable roof, we took leave of him, sincerely wishing him many years of the peaceful enjoyment of that liberty which he fought so long and so bravely to achieve. It will not be uninteresting, we hope, to remark that the old hero still considers himself a soldier, though the nature of his warfare is changed. He is now as zealous a promoter of the Redeemer's cause as he once was in securing the independence of his country.
"Since the above was in type we have heard of the death of
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the aged partner of this venerable patriot. An obituary notice will be found in another column.
"Truly in friendship,
"Signed : THOMAS P. CLINTON."
Within a few weeks after the visit thus described the old soldier met "the last enemy that shall be overcome." His grave is near the Black Warrior River, a few miles from Tus- caloosa, Alabama, and the inscription on the marble marking his last resting place is :
"Major James Robertson, a native of South Carolina, died April 26, 1838, aged 79 years, and was buried here.
"Well known as Horseshoe Robertson he earned a just fame in the war for independence in which he was eminent in courage, patriotism and suffering. He lived fifty-six years with his worthy partner, useful and respected, and died in hopes of a blissful immortality. His children erect this mon- ument as a tribute justly due a gone father, husband, neigh- bor, patriot and soldier. Name derived from a bend in a creek in South Carolina."
Anderson and Pickens Districts, comprising the territory of Old Pendleton, were represented in the Secession Conven- tion, Columbia-Charleston, 1860, 1862, by the following il- lustrious, trusted and honored sons : Anderson, J. N. Whit- ner, James L. Orr, J. P. Reed, R. F. Simpson and Benjamin Franklin Mauldin; Pickens, William Hunter, Andrew F. Lewis, Robert A. Thompson, William S. Grisham and John Maxwell.
This Convention at Charleston, having left Columbia on a special train on account of smallpox in the capital city, on the 20th day of December, 1860, by a vote of one hundred sixty- nine yeas, nays none, adopted the Ordinance of Secession. A fac simile of this ordinance, signatures included, the gift to the College of the Hon. William A. Courtenay, neatly framed, may be seen in the historical museum of Clemson College.
Of these signers from the territory of Old Pendleton, all
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have crossed over the river and are sleeping with their fath- ers, save one, Robert A. Thompson, now living in Walhalla. Two weeks ago to-day your speaker heard him address an educational meeting at Seneca. His subject was "Memorial Day." The venerable speaker made an earnest appeal for a Confederate monument at Walhalla, Anderson having re- cently erected one, in honor of the memory of the Southern soldiers from Oconee County, and for a monument at Co- lumbia in memoriam of Wade Hampton.
The occasion seems a fit one to speak of the burial places of these signers. William S. Grisham's grave is at West Union, Benjamin Franklin Mauldin's at Williamston, Wil- liam Hunter's near Pickens Court House, J. N. Whitner's, James L. Orr's and J. P. Reed's at Anderson, R. F. Simp- son's at his home place, near Pendleton, and Andrew F. Lewis's and John Maxwell's at the Old Stone Church. Near the ashes of Messrs. Simpson and Lewis lie the mortal re- mains of a son of each, boys who wore the gray and gave their young lives for the cause so dear to the father's heart- the cause for which Lee fought and Jackson died. These fathers signed-their sons died-for Secession.
"Each for his hearth and household fire; Father for child, and son for sire."
The Pendleton Farmers' Society was organized in 1815. Its honorary members were: Gen. Thomas Pinckney, St. James, Santee; Hon. Wm. Lowndes, C. C. Pinckney, Jr., R. S. Izard, J. R. Pringle, Dr. J. Noble, Gen. D. E. Huger, all of Charleston; Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Washington City ; Col. J. B. I'On, St. James, Santee; Col. L. J. Alston, St. Stephens, Alabama; Rev. Dr. Waddell, Athens, Ga .; Gen. John Blassingame, Greenville; D. P. Hillhouse, Washing- ton, Ga .; Dr. Isaac Auld, Edisto Island; Dr. C. M. Reese, Philadelphia.
Its resident members were in 1815: Thomas Pinckney, Jr., Jno. L. North, Andrew Pickens, Benjamin Smith, John Miller, Sr., Charles Gaillard, John E. Calhoun, J. T. Lewis,
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Thos. L. Dart, J. B. Earle, C. W. Miller, Samuel Cherry, John Taylor, James C. Griffin, Robert Anderson, William Hunter, Benjamin DuPre, Sr., Joseph Grisham, L. Mc- Gregor, Samuel Earle, Richard Harrison, Patrick Norris, J. C. Kilpatrick, Joseph B. Earle, T. W. Farrar, Thomas Stribling, John Green, Josia D. Gaillard and Joseph Von Shanklin.
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